Computer systems are now displaying a greater variety of graphics, video and other forms of data concurrently. However, many computer systems do not have sufficient bandwidth resources to update and display all these types of data on a display at the same time.
Some computer systems solve this problem by increasing the bandwidth of the system bus to handle all of these forms, types and amount of data. As a result, as users request more types of information such as in multimedia applications, the system bus has become more clogged with information other than information directly utilized and needed by the main processor.
Multi-bus systems are known to handle the large amounts of information being utilized. However, coordination between buses and devices on different buses is difficult. Typically, a bus bridge may be used such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,935,894 to coordinate the buses by allowing units on each side of the bus to pass messages between the buses.